Features
Monday, March 14 2011
Pedagogy of the Possessed: Teaching and Learning in 'Buffy'
The implied pedagogical theories undergirding both Buffy and Giles's guidance of her evince a particularly American pragmatic understanding of the learning process.
Monday, June 14 2010
'Blackmail' and the Birth of the British Talkies
Originally conceived as a silent film, Blackmail was quickly converted to sound, making it the first British talkie. To accommodate theaters that were not equipped for sound, it was reissued as a silent film. The differences in the two versions are here compared.
Thursday, May 13 2010
"Fringe": Every Generation Gets the "X-Files" It Deserves
Fringe is The X-Files new and improved for viewers with shorter attention spans and an appetite for more gadgets and less paper work, more super geniuses and fewer bureaucrats, higher body counts and less verisimilitude, more answers and fewer questions.
Thursday, October 30 2008
Decade of the Dead
After a decade in which the dissemination of powerful images of human suffering—911, Abu Ghraib, Darfur, Iraq, New Orleans—have had little impact on changing the status quo, it’s hard to grudge Romero for his pessimism.
Reviews
Wednesday, January 25 2012
'Jane’s Journey': Insightful, Moving, Beautiful and Maddeningly Superficial
Lorenz Knauer presents Jane Goodall’s life as traditionally female, structured by marriages, sacrifice, and an act of reconciliation with her son.
Thursday, January 12 2012
Purge This Urge: 'Chillerama'
For decades low-budget horror has provided plots filled with terrorized teens. Chillerama is their revenge: a film made exclusively from the perspective of 13-year-old boys.
Wednesday, December 14 2011
The 'Needle' Gives Us Sew-Sew Horror
Needle must rely on increasingly gruesome deaths to cloak its essential, mechanistic repetitiveness.
Thursday, December 1 2011
Village Life Might be Brutal, but the City Is Barbaric: 'Le Beau Serge' and 'Les Cousins'
With director, both leads, a supporting actor, editor, and cinematographer in common, Claude Chabrol’s first two films seem like installments of a karmic cycle.
Thursday, October 27 2011
People Lose Their Hair -- and Their Minds -- in 'Blue Sunshine'
Like an amber-colored water goblet, Blue Sunshine embodies the late '70s.
Blogs
Thursday, December 16 2010
Just Say Nooo!: ‘Contact’
It’s always impressive when a director can imbue silverware with horror.
Monday, November 22 2010
Johnny Flynn, 10 November 2010 - Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
The sound of a room full of 20-year-olds singing “when you’re dead” over and over again, while Flynn provided harmony, made for an exhilarating end to an unforgettable evening.
